Vivienne's Guide To Harry Potter Fanfiction
by quidditch-chic
Summary: So you've heard about something called 'fanfiction' from a friend who appears to be a deranged 'fangirl' and is constantly obsessing over things such as 'slash', 'fluff', 'lemons' and someone called MarySue? Be confused no longer! *UPDATED 2011*


**Vivienne's Guide to Harry Potter Fan Fiction**

**Disclaimer: all material belongs to J.K Rowling or to the owners of fan fiction**

So you've heard about something called 'fan fiction' from a friend who appears to be a slightly deranged 'fangirl' and is constantly obsessing over things such as 'slash', 'fluff', 'lemons', and someone called Mary-Sue? Be confused no longer, my friend, as I am here to vanquish all your misgivings and to hopefully ensure that you end up just as obsessed with fan fiction as your friend. Although fan fiction can be on just about anything, I will be focusing on Harry Potter, as it is my favourite to read.

As someone who drives her friends to distraction talking about the latest Harry Potter story I have discovered, which often features scenes between Harry and Draco (and they ain't fighting, let me tell you!), I feel I am more than qualified to present you with a guide to what Harry Potter fan fiction consists of. Of course I cannot tell you absolutely everything – some things you must discover for yourself as you go along, but that is part of the fun! Of course you may discover some things you wish you hadn't, but in order to help you avoid some of those things and guide you towards stories you'll hopefully enjoy, I have put together this guide to Harry Potter fan fiction, which I hope helps you to further understand exactly what your friend what rattling on about when they said, "I read this lemony drabble about Hermione and Draco. It was PWP and very OOC, but I love a good Ho!Mione!"

In general, fan fiction is a website dedicated to stories based on real books, TV shows, movies etc. The authors use the established characters and ideas and use them to write their own stories, which can be brilliant or not-so-brilliant. For example, there are stories on everything from The OC, The Lord of the Rings and Gattaca to Artemis Fowl, To Kill A Mockingbird and of course Harry Potter, which currently boasts more than half a million stories.

In order to find a story, you can either just search through the stories by page (thousands upon thousands of them), or you can choose filters so it displays only the stories you may be interested in reading. These are:

**genre** – choose from genres such as romance, humour, drama, action, mystery, horror, parody, fantasy, tragedy etc.

**rating** – anything from K through to M

**language** – self-explanatory (if you're English, don't choose a story in French)

**length** – if you just leave this one as "all" you get all different lengths, but if you want a longer one you can choose from stories with more than 1000 words all the way to up to more than 100,000… stories range from one shots (one chapter) to novel length fics which take a goddamn long time to read

**status** – stories can either be completed or may still be in-progress (if it's in progress you will have to wait until the author updates to read the rest which can be frustrating)

the best part – the **pairing**! – this means the two main characters (who may or may not be in a romantic relationship). This should also be put in the summary so you know whom you're reading about, but sometimes you get surprised… pairings can range from canon pairings like Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny to the not-so-canon Dumbledore/McGonagall, Hogwarts/The Giant Squid (don't ask – it does exist, I've read it, and if you want to as well it's called 'First Encounter' by Lyris Malachi), Harry/Draco and Hermione/Snape.

There are also several warnings that authors put in their summary to notify you of the contents of the fic. **READ THESE** – they are very important and prevent you from stumbling across a fic with contents you would rather not read. Here are a few examples:

**Actorfic** - this is a story that is not centred on fictional characters but the actual actors who play that character. e.g Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.

**Alternate Universe** (**AU**)- this is where an author will choose to ignore the canon (_see __**Canon**_) of the show and create their own events. Usually this is when an author will deny a character's death or act like an event never happened.

**BAMF** (**B**ad **A**ss **M**other **F**ucker) – a character who is particularly awesome and impressive i.e. Neville Longbottom!

**BDSM** (**B**ondage **D**ominance, **S**ado-**M**asochism) - sex/relationships involving sexual slavery, master/slave relationships, bondage games, kink and fetish. Will usually involve leather, whips and chains.

**Bestiality** -a sexual relationship between a human and an animal.

**Beta'd **– means the story has been edited by another person. This helps to eliminate grammatical mistakes and plot problems.

**BWL **(**B**oy **W**ho **L**ived) – Harry Potter.

**Canon** - all of the events which do actually happen in the books/movies.

**Crackfic -** stories in which completely ridiculous, unbelievable or insane things occur, often without reasonable explanation but with great enjoyment. Often seem as if they could only be conceived by an author high on drugs, but are hilariously addictive to readers.

**Crossover** - a fan fiction that incorporates characters, events, places and ideas from another fandom. So, if Harry Potter met Aragorn or Captain Jack Sparrow, this would be a crossover, since they are from two separate fandoms.

**Drabble** - a fan fiction that is self-contained and is no more than 100 words. A half drabble is 50 words and a double drabble is 200 words.

**Fluff** - a light fiction which is usually just a day-in-the-life piece that is cute and humorous.

**Founderfic** - stories written about the Hogwarts founders (Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff).

**Ho!Mione** - derogatory term for Hermione Granger as distorted by authors who believe that she is tragically repressed and overdue for a sexual awakening, which usually includes hair dye, slutty clothing and tattoos/piercings. Ho!Mione cares not for magic or grades; her only concern is shagging whoever the author fancies (usually Draco).

**Hurt/Comfort **(**h/c**) - a fan fiction in which a character is put through a traumatizing experience in order to be comforted by another character.

**Lemon** - any fan fiction containing graphic sexual situations that are described.

**Mary-Sue** - any original female character who is too perfect, too extreme, or otherwise badly done. Usually an idealized image of the author, portrayed as the most beautiful, intelligent, powerful character with whom everybody falls in love. Able to fix everybody's problems. (The male version of a Mary Sueis a** Gary Stew **or a **Marty-Sam.**)

**MPREG –** includes male pregnancy.

**MWPP **(**M**oony, **W**ormtail, **P**adfoot, & **P**rongs) – set in the Marauder's era and therefore featuring James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lily and Severus.

**Non-con** (**non-consensual**) - refers to the presence of non-consensual sexual contact.

**OBHWF** (**O**ne **B**ig **H**appy **W**easley **F**amily) - a tongue-in-cheek fan theory that, eventually, every other character will marry into the Weasley clan and all will be well.

**OC** (**O**riginal **C**haracter) - any character that is not in the series and is created by the fan fiction author.

**Oneshot **(**or Stand Alone**) – complete story with only one chapter. Don't need to read any other story to understand it.

**OOC** (**O**ut **O**f **C**haracter) - when a canon character acts in such a way as to be totally contrary to what they would in the books.

**OTP **(**O**ne **T**rue** P**airing) - an author's favourite relationship pairing.

**Pairings** - the main characters featured in a romantic or sexual relationship within the story. They can be indentified either by writing out the full first and/or last names of the characters (e.g Sirius Black/Remus Lupin), the initals or abbreviation of the characters names (e.g HG/RW – Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley), or by 'name-smooshing' where parts of each character's name are mashed together to come up with a new word to describe the pairing (e.g Draco/Harry = Drarry, Snape/Harry = Snarry, Draco/Hermione = Dramione, Dean/Seamus = Deamus, and Draco/Snape/Harry = Drapery)!

**Plotbunny** - the uncontrollable story idea that smacks an author in the face (often at the most inappropriate of times) and demands to be written.

**PWP** (**P**lot, **W**hat **P**lot? or **P**orn **W**ithout **P**lot) – a story that contains no other action than an overt sexual act between the characters.

**Severitus** – a story where Severus Snape mentors, apprentices or in any way becomes a father-like figure to Harry Potter.

**Slash **– sexual situations between two people of the same sex. e.g between females is shown as femslash, f/f, or f/f/f (threesome), and between males is m/m or m/m/m. If you are homophobic **do not** read these as they can get extremely graphic.

**Smut** -stories with scenes of graphic sex, in which any plot or character development that also occurs is secondary to the sex.

**Songfic** - a fan fiction which is based on a song or includes a song.

**Squick** - possibly offensive elements (i.e. bestiality, BDSM, incest, mpreg, etc) in a story which may cause feelings of unease or revulsion in a reader. Authors really should warn you of things such as rape, cutting, suicide, depression, character death etc. If you stick with the lower ratings that shouldn't be a problem.

**WIP** (**W**ork **I**n **P**rogress) - a story whose ending has not yet been written or a rough draft which has not been thoroughly edited.

There are so many Harry Potter fan fiction sites that I can't name them all, but this one is set out well and is a great place to start. I should warn you that this site is highly addictive and you might find your hand going numb from scrolling through story after story, missing meals in order to finish a particularly long chapter, and ignoring all social interaction completely.

Prepare yourself for madness and hilarity, as some of the authors are so obsessed they have lost their minds, and many tend to write while on sugar-induced highs at strange times of the morning (although these are often the funniest ones). Many are in such denial that they refuse to accept that Sirius and Dumbledore have in fact died. Some of the funnier scenarios are:

The trio finding the Harry Potter books, or getting the internet at Hogwarts and reading fan fiction about themselves.

Two characters getting locked in a broom cupboard (not very original I know, but can be bloody funny).

The trio going back in time or the Marauders coming forward in time and the two groups meeting each other.

So go forth and read! There are so many talented authors out there and some fantastic stories, you just have to find them (there is also a lot of rubbish).

Happy reading!

Author's Note: please tell me if there is anything I've got wrong or if anything could be improved. I would appreciate it! Love Viv xoxo


End file.
